April 23rd, 2008 by willie
Well we made it back from Japan. It was an amazing trip, probably the best one I have ever had. Tokyo was an amazing, bustling, insane, but so very organized city. Everything just runs like clockwork there, the trains, the roads, just everything is buttoned down and in place. In a place like NYC where chaos seems to run everywhere, it is crazy to see a city with more people, more bustle, but so much calmer still and in control. Kyoto was very beautiful with a modern city center and then the historic old Kyoto districts of tea houses, Geishas, and temples. These two cities and Japan in general have such an interesting contrast between old Japan, with its gardens, crafts, and very conservative traditions; and new Japan, with its crazy colors, ultra-modern feel and a general no-holds barred aesthetic. These two very different sensibilities seem to exist side-by-side without much problem. The people there were also really great. Not many people spoke English, but everywhere we went people went out of their way to make us feel welcome and to help us to understand as much as we could.
Things got a bit rocky towards the end though, when I came down with the flu. It made my last couple days there a bit long and we weren’t able to do a ton of things without me getting extremely tired. The flight back was twice as bad while being sick and then I got worse once we got back. I am recovering now though, so that is good.
I put up the photo links before, but here is a condensed version of the photos, since I’m sure the whole lot of them is a bit overwhelming. Click me please.
April 13th, 2008 by willie
I am writing this from my hotel room overlooking the skyscrapers in Shinjuku, Tokyo. We are having a great time and have fully immersed ourselves in the insane Japanese culture. We have already done exploring of our neighborhood Shinjuku, Ueno, Akihabara, Shibuya, and just got back from a very costly trip to Harajuku. Lots and lots of stuff to buy. Before we left, I talked Starla into letting me get a new digital SLR for the trip and I was so excited to take some great photos. So I got to JFK Thursday morning and realized that I left the battery to my new camera charging plugged into the wall at home. Luckily, I was on my way to Tokyo, the electronics capital of the world and I found a new one and charger the first night. We are here in Tokyo until Tuesday, when we take the bullet train to Kyoto. The first batch of photos are uploaded and we will keep uploading them until our trip is over. Click me for happiness of life.
January 2nd, 2008 by willie
So we just got back from our trip to Wyoming. It was nice to be back for a while but good to be back home now. Starla got me an awesome gold Zelda themed DS for Christmas which rules. I also got to see my first game at Invesco Field in Denver! David and I got great seats 20 rows up on the 50 yard line and the ladies sat up in a higher section. I don’t really have anything else to say though. Happy New Year. Pics.
November 17th, 2007 by willie
So the DWF Gala was this last Thursday night. Why it was on Thursday, I’m not sure. It was much better suited for a Friday or Saturday, like last year. But anyways, we had a great time and I got to wear my fancy Shea stadium jacket, this time complete with Wells Fargo badge. We also scored a bunch of sweet free swag too, which is always fun. The one not so great part was Benji and Joel Madden of “Good Charlotte”. Really? such a lame band and they sat their with their wannabe hipster fedoras and sang bad songs with an acoustic guitar. Still, I guess better than Nick Lachey from last year though.
I finally got to get my picture taken with David Wright himself, he was nice and courteous and I told him I designed the poster and he said “Great Job!” but I don’t think he knew what I was talking about. Before the event, I went up to hard rock to hang the rock stars we cut out of foam core above the auction tables, they looked pretty good hanging up there although I’m not sure how many people even noticed. One of my posters from last year was auctioned off for like $400 though, so that is cool. Here is a link to more photos.
July 22nd, 2007 by willie
Well, it’s been a while since I have written anything. Suzi and I went down to Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas for work. We are starting work on marketing a giant, next to uninhabited island in the Bahamas called Mayaguana and took a trip down to get the feel and scope of everything. In order to get to the island you have to fly to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos and then we took a charter flight in a tiny little old plane over. What we found was a very beautiful and very rough place. There are only 300 inhabitants on the island and they only got electricity 10 years ago, and there are hardly any roads on the majority of the island. So now our client is looking to build some low density resorts and homes there, but they have to start from scratch and import everything to even think of building things. We stayed in the only current hotel on the island which is bare-bones to say the least. Luckily on the way back I had a while to relax on some of Provo’s beautiful pristine beaches for a while. Anyway, there are photos of my trip up on my flickr here.
June 18th, 2007 by willie
So we finished our trip to the great state of New Jersey to go to Six Flags. It was a great time all around although a very long day. We left our apt at 6:30am and got back at about 2:00am. The zipcar went great and was easy enough, plus we got to see a random homeless woman yelling at a gas station clerk while buying a lotto ticket. The gold flash pass was great as we waited on average about 5 minutes for a ride opposed to the standard 60-90 min.
Kingda Ka ended up being not that bad, going from 0-128 mph in 3 seconds kind of puts your brain into a shock and once you realize what is going on its over. My come from behind favorite coaster though had to be Nitro, which this picture depicts after our 215 foot 80mph first drop. We ended up riding that one four times. All in all we had a total of 14 rides on the big coasters. Add to that a bunch of unhealthy food and walking for hours it all makes a pretty good Saturday.
Photos here
Well we made it back from Japan. It was an amazing trip, probably the best one I have ever had. Tokyo was an amazing, bustling, insane, but so very organized city. Everything just runs like clockwork there, the trains, the roads, just everything is buttoned down and in place. In a place like NYC where chaos seems to run everywhere, it is crazy to see a city with more people, more bustle, but so much calmer still and in control. Kyoto was very beautiful with a modern city center and then the historic old Kyoto districts of tea houses, Geishas, and temples. These two cities and Japan in general have such an interesting contrast between old Japan, with its gardens, crafts, and very conservative traditions; and new Japan, with its crazy colors, ultra-modern feel and a general no-holds barred aesthetic. These two very different sensibilities seem to exist side-by-side without much problem. The people there were also really great. Not many people spoke English, but everywhere we went people went out of their way to make us feel welcome and to help us to understand as much as we could.
